


The opposite of Ineffable

by lexicidas



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Other, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-04-12 08:20:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19128190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexicidas/pseuds/lexicidas
Summary: God, Channel hopping: haha look at these dumbasses(or A Comprehensive Guide to Being in Love For Six Thousand Years And Not Saying Shit)





	1. The end of the Arrangement

**Author's Note:**

> Did the tv show adaptation give me more Ineffable Husbands than I expected? Yes. Was it enough? Absolutely not. So here goes a tiny idea of what might have happened after lunch at the Ritz. Despite a few details (it was Crowley who revived the dove you uncultured swines) it mostly follows the tv canon. Also only the first part is kind of angsty, I promise.

Lunch at the Ritz is much cheaper than one would believe, especially if that one was a demon named Crowley who had never paid for his food anywhere, ever, and wasn't about to start now.

  
He had eaten Beef Wellington and a delicious vichyssoise with sheep's curd and chives, and was currently not eating a raspberry shoufflé, which was instead being inhaled by an angel with such enthusiasm one might think he hadn't eaten since Moses parted the Red Sea. It wasn't the case, but incidentally they had been eating lunch during that particular biblical event, arguing about why they had the exact same assignment, and both were baffled when they finally made it back to the coast and found the army of Ramses drowned. It still was a sore point between them, who had performed that miracle. But since it was done, they had nodded at each other and gone their separate ways, whistling distractedly, as if the job had gone just as planned.

  
The angel was called Aziraphale and was Crowley's first, best, and only friend.

Aziraphale had the type of shoulders you wanted to lay your head on to rest, the kind of perfectly manicured fingers any baby would like to grab and the kind of blond curls cherubs had in Renaissance paintings. He looked exactly like people imagine angels to look, if people considered angels could be gay, chubby, more british than beans on toast and look well past their forties.

Crowley had eyes like a snake, a tongue like a snake, and weighed more or less as much as a common snake. And not even an australian one; just your usual grass snake, like the one who lives in your aunt's backyard and dreams of moving to Ibiza so people stop making a fuss every time she goes for a casual stroll. Or a casual slither, more like. No one would have thought Crowley was a demon, but he did look like an prick. Kind of like Bon Jovi if Bon Jovi had gotten stuck in 2010 with a bad dye job.

It had been a lovely day so far. They had survived the wrath of both Heaven and Hell (it was a long story). They had gained some time to live as they pleased on Earth. They had reconvened in Berkeley Square and swapped their appearences (that is even a longer story). Then, looking like themselves again, they had decided to have lunch at the Ritz. The food was exquisite. They had discussed the outcome of Armageddon and their part in it (don't let me even get started in how long that story is). They had a toast. They were finally free to do as they pleased, good or bad, without worrying about demonic intervention or, God forbid, angelic intervention. The whole world was their playground.

Then Crowley decided he needed to never see Aziraphale again.

It wasn't an easy choice. They had known each other for over six thousand years. And Crowley had been in love with him for four thousand, nine hundred and seven years, one month, six days, twenty-three hours, fourteen minutes and almost twenty seconds, give or take.

  
They were near the fields of what would later be known as Salisbury, watching people move rocks around. No one knew what they were for, even then, so don't believe any theories from scientists or tour guides or flat-Earthers. It was just a circle of rocks. Everyone thought it looked impressive (except Aziraphale, but he was too nice to say anything, and Crowley, but he could feel how many resources would be wasted in studying those dumb rocks instead of curing cancer or whatever, so he said nothing as well). So they mostly drank, and hung around, and, in the case of a demon, fell in love.

He had been very careful not to admit it, specially to himself, and not to show it, specially to Aziraphale. Of course, Aziraphale, being an angel, had felt the pang of unrequited love ricochet in the room like a stray bullet: it had shattered the door, zipped past his ear, bounced off a wall and dug itself deep, deep in someone's chest.

“Did you hear that?” he had asked, and looked around for the cause of the commotion, for the poor sucker who had just fallen in love, and wondered if he could somehow help them without Crowley noticing. The demon had given him a lot of grief over the years because Aziraphale's attempts at getting couples together always resulted in arguments, fights, natural disasters, and once, in a particularly memorable situation that he still swears had nothing to do with his intervention, the invention of the wheel.

“Uh?” the demon said. His yellow eyes refocused and he took a long swig of his drink, as if he had been lost in the desert for forty days, although England was particularly damp back then. “Hear what?”

And Aziraphale just knew.

So he had been aware of Crowley's feelings for four thousand, nine hundred and seven years, one month, six days, twenty-three hours, fourteen minutes and five whole seconds. The five seconds made a huge difference, you see. He had used those five seconds to stare at the demon, ponder if he should say something about it, decide that no, his feelings would go away on their own, and order another round, on him. A lot of five-seconds had passed since then and Crowley was still looking at him the same way, which is to say, very much in love.

So it took him by surprise when, in the twenty-first century, in a very fancy hotel, just as they were about to leave, Crowley blurted out:

“We should go our separate ways from now on.”

Aziraphale was in the arduous process of leaving a considerable tip to each of the waiters, including those who hadn't served them, those who weren't working that day, and those who wouldn't be working at the Ritz for another few years, just in case it was a while until they had lunch there again.

“What?” He got distracted for a second and a sixteen year old in Norfolk who would at some point in her life make a living serving ridiculously elaborate dishes and barely tolerating wealthy tourists found her bank account had miraculously manifested a few extra zeroes. “Why?”

Crowley waited until he had finished tipping everyone and their grandmas and made it out of the restaurant. It was raining outside. Crowley snapped his fingers and a gust of air ripped the umbrella from a pedestrian's hand and sent it flying. Aziraphale's brow furrowed and the rain subdued into a drizzle.

Aziraphale was still waiting for an answer.

It wasn't easy looking into an angel's eyes and lying, so Crowley settled for a half truth.

“We aren't good for each other”.

Which was to say, I'm never going to be good enough for you, and it hurts to keep trying.

There was no argument. Aziraphale gave him a curt nod and stepped into the rain.

“Wait, I'll drive you.” The Bentley was parked in front of the Ritz, in a place were no car had been parked in for centuries, but parking rules weren't made for demons. Not many rules were for demons.

“You definitely will not, thank you very much.”

Aziraphale was walking faster than Crowley had ever seen him, which was still slow enough to hold up every other pedestrian in the sidewalk. He had never gotten used to the rush of the city in the twenty first century.

“It will take you hours to get home, you know. I'm actually rather proud of my work with London's public transport.”

“You didn't invent it,” said Aziraphale primly.

“Well, I invented part of it. The zone system for the underground is one of my greatest accomplishments. And the overground? Oh, just like the underground, but slower, different stations, doesn't allow you to transfer trains without paying twice... a stroke of genius.”

“Well, the buses are still mine. And the Oyster cards.”

“I will Uber your buses into oblivion,” Crowley seethed.

“Fine. Then I'll walk.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

Aziraphale turned on his heels and left. It was raining again and he couldn't concentrate enough to make it stop.

Crowley watched him go. He had never looked at anyone walk away from him, and wondered if it always felt like this, as if the Beef Wellington had came back to life in his stomach and was trying to climb its way back up his throat.

Demons don't cry. It's one of those unspoken rules, just like don't do good deeds and don't put milk in your tea and don't fall in love with angels. Rules that are unspoken because if you say out loud, it means you have thought about it, and then you would have to suffer eternal torment in the deepest pit of hell, because, really, what kind of twat goes around thinking about love and goodness and crying and tea with fucking milk?

Angels don't cry. This is a spoken rule, and a written rule, even a carved in stone rule, because angels are sticklers about that sort of thing. They love pointing and saying “you can't do that, see, it says so right here”. So if Aziraphale cried, someone might descend from the Heavens to smugly show him a stone tablet where it clearly stated NO CRYING ON THESE PREMISES. The premises were, of course, Everywhere. And the angel would probably be Israfil. Fucking Israfil.

  
So they went their separate ways, and neither of them cried.


	2. A New Arrangement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RECONCILIATION SCENE!!!!!!! THE END OF A SIX THOUSAND YEAR SLOW BURN!!!!!!!!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short lived angst, as I promised!

It was a dark and stormy afternoon, and Crowley was trying to nap.

Demons don't sleep, so he needed to concentrate. The only problems were that 1) every time he closed his eyes he could see Aziraphale's expression. Not sad, really, maybe dissappointed, but mostly just resigned and 2) Someone had been ringing the doorbell for ten minutes.

His flat didn't even have a doorbell.

And still it kept ringing.

He willed it to be quiet and the noise stopped with a satisfying glurg, as if the doorbell (or lack thereof) had melted under his demonic touch.

Crowley flopped back into the bed. He had one of those mattresses that were supposed to remember your shape, but either it had been too long since he last laid on it, or his mattress had amnesia, because it was uncomfortable as hell. Heaven. Whatever.

Then the doorbell rang again, louder and even more annoying than before.

“For the love of- WHAT?”

He threw the door open. He expected a demon. Someone must have noticed their little trick with the holy water and was there to make him pay for it. Eternally. Or maybe Heaven had caught up and sent someone to destroy him. Maybe it would be an angel at his door.

And it was an angel alright.

“You don't get to break up with me. I am breaking up with you.”

Aziraphale was soaking wet, as wet as an angel who has waited for the bus for fifteen minutes without an umbrella before finally giving up and walking home in the rain, only to decide he didn't want to go home and feel miserable, fuck _that_ , and instead had walked another good hour to the flat of a demon to tell him off. Exactly that wet.

Crowley blinked and a pair of sunglasses materialized directly on his face.

“Okay,” the demon said cautiously. “Could you break up with me while wearing some dry clothes? And maybe a blanket? You are gonna catch a cold .”

Aziraphale inhlaed through his nose, but if he had been polite enough to create a doorbell and ring it until he opened the door instead of letting himself in, well, he could accept some hospitality.

He walked cautously into the flat, dripping water. Everything in it was white and sterile. It looked like a fashionable hospital, or a museum, or Heaven. He wrinkled his nose. He only liked museums marginally more than the other two, since Crowley had pointed out most of the stuff in them was stolen anyway.

It was the first time he visited Crowley in his apartment and, compared to the bookshop, it was strange how empty it looked. He had a room just for the houseplants, which went very still and looked amazingly verdant and scared as they walked past, and an office with a chair that looked like a throne and a Mona Lisa sketch on the wall, an original from Da Vinci himself, dedicated to “al mio amico Antonio”. Aziraphale refused to read too much into that. They stopped at the lounge; big and empty, with leather couches. Instead of sitting, Aziraphale approached the statue in the corner. It looked like angels fighting. Now _that_ he was going to read into.

“I'll get you some towels, yes?”

Crowley hurried out of the room. He usually just wished his clothes into existence, but found some pajama bottoms and a t-shirt from the world tour of a band Aziraphale had never heard of. The mug of hot cocoa and the fluffy blanket he did have to pull out of thin air. When he came back, Aziraphale was crouching down to stare at the statue at eye level.

“Is that us?” he asked, ignoring the towels and clothes and mug Crowley was carrying precariously.

“Uhm, no? It's represents the struggle of Good and Evil, not even necessarily angels against demons.”

“They have wings,” pointed out Aziraphale. “And this one has the same birthmark you have on your shoulder.”

“The birthmark this body has” said Crowley. It was completely different.

“Why are they fighting naked?”

“Poetic license from the sculptor,” Crowley growled. He managed to leave the mug on a coffee table so thin and stylish it looked like it would crumble under the weight, and tossed the towels straight at Aziraphale's face. The angel lost his balance and fell flat on his ass, still damp and now really confused. At least he wasn't examining the statue anymore. “Get dressed.”

Crowley made a show of taking his trusty mister and leaving the room to spray his plants. They didn't need more water, but drained it all valiantly and without complaints.

When he came back, the angel was rolling the hem of the trousers, which were too long for him but had miraculously transformed into tartan. The shirt was a bit tight, but otherwise fine. Crowley had never seen Aziraphale wearing black. Or a t-shirt. Or anything short-sleeved, really.

It all looked good on him.

“Right. So, you wanted to talk?” said Crowley. And only then did Aziraphale's actual words register in his brain. “Wait, you want to break up with me?”

The angel was sitting primly in his couch, his back straight and his legs crossed at the ankle, and his eyes were stubbornly staring through the huge window.

“Yes. I'm sorry I left without saying anything. And I'm sorry I'm not good for you. But it isn't fair that you dropped that on me without warning.”

“What?” Crowley repeated, more incredulous each second. “You are good. Being good is what you do! You are an angel. Literally."

Aziraphale opened his mouth, probably to argue (he argued a lot for a celestial being) but the demon kept going.

"And you can't break up with me. That's what couples do. I mean, we aren't together, so we can't break up. You keep using those words. I don't think they mean what you think they mean.”

When Crowley was nervous, he talked a lot, and even worse, he resorted to talking in Princess bride quotes. He had spent a good part of 1987 watching it obsessively and it was a hard habit to break.

Finally Aziraphale looked at him.

“We aren't? I thought we were.”

The angel was positively bewildered.

“Uh, why?”

“Well. _Our own side,_ you know. And we've been acting like a couple for centuries now. We go on dates all the time. And you are just... so nice.”

Crowley was having the most surrealist moment in his live. He could have refuted all those reasons, but the last one offended him so deeply that it shook him awake. 

“I'm not nice."

“You are nice to me. You do all these things you aren't supposed to do, for me. It was more than the Arrangement. You rescued me from the Bastille and took me out for crepes. You bought me flowers and chocolates when I opened the library. You didn't even mess up my coronation chicken recipe because I had worked so hard on it.”

“I did create the crisp sandwich, to compensate” Crowley tried weakly.

“The books from the church, the dead dove, Shakespeare...”

“Now you are just beating around the bush.”

“I will beat around every damn bush in England if I damn please!" Aziraphale huffed and stood up so they could see eye to eye. "You were in love with me, and-”

Crowley raised a hand to stop him in his tracks.

“You knew, all this time, and still you told me nothing?”

"I... I didn't think there was anything to say."

Then Crowley walked off to the entrance of the flat, stuttering and pale with fury, and threw the door open. 

LEAVE was the word he was looking for, but you can't love an angel for so long without some manners rubbing on you, so instead he said:

“Now, if you would be so kind...”

The angel didn't look repentant, or scared, or even sad. He just looked stubborn.

“No.”

“No?”

“No, I'm not going. Because I love you too.”

Has something extraordinarily, unbeliebably good ever happened to you? Have you won the lottery, found an oasis in the desert as you were about to die of dehydration? Has someone you have loved for six thousand years ever told you he loves you back? Then you know how Crowley felt.

He didn't believe it, obviously.

“Now you are just fucking with me.”

See, that was the catch. Aziraphale didn't mean to love him back. Crowley hadn't done nice things to get him to love him, he had just done them to make him happy, which was infinitely worse. He had apologised without knowing why he had to apologise. He had gone out of his way to protect him. And Aziraphale had just assumed than when two people who love each other spend so much time together they are, well, **together**. But apparently he needed to be perfectly clear. For Crowley.

“You make me better, too. You make me real.”

And he took the sunglasses off the demon's face and kissed him.

Usually, now is when I switch channels. Just because I'm all-seeing doesn't mean I have to see everything. But even I was curious now.

The angel took a step back, tried to straigten the lapels of his coat, realised he wasn't wearing it and crossed his hands behind his back in a gesture that would usually look calm and serene, but now only looked like someone who was afraid where his hands would go if he didn't keep them in check.

Crowley rubbed his bottom lip with a thumb and closed the door again, all without taking his eyes off his angel.

“That, er. That was a first.”

It wasn't. Unbeknownst to them both, several angels and demons had kissed during the last centuries and had come to the unanimous conclussion that, just like many other human inventions, kissing wasn't all that impressive. One of the demons had ranked it barely above cookies that looked like they had chocolate chips in them but were actually raisins and well below roller coasters (angels, for some reason no one had bothered to study yet, despised roller coasters, and she instead ranked kissing well below carousels. That was probably why it didn't work between them. Being in different sides of an eternal war was just a minor inconvenience).

Only now the conclussion wasn't so unanimous anymore. For two people who had spend sixty centuries not kissing each other, Aziraphale and Crowley both silently agreed that it was quite enjoyable, and they weren't too bad at it.

"Your side isn't gonna be happy about that, angel" Crowley pointed out.

"Who cares. Our own side, remember? To hell with Heaven, and to heaven with Hell, I guess, and to both with ineffability. Fuck the ineffable plan. I wanna be with you because I love you, not because some obscure game She is playing.”

"Fuck the ineffable plan?" he repeated. He had never seen Aziraphale so... sprightly. At least, since he had found that copy of Agnes Nutter book. "Let's just be together?"

“Yes. I was happy as we were. Just don't break up with me again, dear.”

"Don't you break up with me, angel," he replied. Going back to what they had sounded great to Crowley, with a little but obvious drawback. “So no more kissing?”

Angel's weren't supposed to blush, but Aziraphale's cheeks were making a valiant effort to change that.

“Oh, the kissing was nice. And I always wanted to know what was the deal with holding hands.”

“People do that quite often, don't they?” Crowley offered his hands, palms up, and Aziraphale took them, like kids in a playground or a soon to be married couple before the priest. Long fingers with veins clearly visible under the skin, and plump, perfectly manicured fingers. They fit together nicely. “And that would be enough for you?”

“That would be perfect.”

“Perfect,” Crowley echoed. He smiled. Beatific can mean two things: joyful or holy. And against his own nature, the demon looked both. “So this means... what, exactly?”

“It means we have a New Arrangement.”

They both smiled, fingers still intertwined.

“I would like a New Arrangement,” Crowley admitted, then twirled Aziraphale towards the couch. “Now drink your cocoa, angel, it's getting cold.”

I finally switched channels. Romantic comedies weren't my favorite, and when you can see Everything, there's always something you want to watch. Probably a rerun of Top Gear.

 

 


End file.
